If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning.
This story follows the first in Jenn’s Rediscovered series, Last Assault on Oak Island.
By the time Carlos and Lauren crossed the lazy street traffic and entered the antiques shop, Fredericks had other customers. It was the Japanese couple from the day before, who had returned for the green glassware. It was evident that Fredericks was pleased, nodding without looking to Carlos and Lauren standing to one side of the counter as he trained his attention on the first couple. With the glassware opening the couple's wallet, Fredericks wanted to know if the Japanese couple was interested in other patterns, perhaps mermaids or peacocks.
They were. Anything with either motif.
Lauren made an effort not to clench her teeth. Carlos seemed to be chomping on his dentures, too. Here they were, she knew, waiting to offer Fredericks over millions of dollars, and he was quibbling with a few hundred Euros.
She kept one eye on the street, waiting for the one-eyed Polish man to walk through the door.
Or Reuben.
That thought hadn't occurred to her, not really, that he could possibly walk into the shop at any moment. She shook the thought from her mind. He seemed more of the back door type to her since exposing his earlier methods with Eischmidt. She wasn't sure it was a fair assessment, but the one she was currently using nonetheless.
The Japanese couple finally decided on their purchases.
Lauren watched as it took twenty minutes for Fredericks to wrap and package the two mermaid plates, a peacock charger, and a Lalique Cristal molding shaped like a peacock fan.
Carlos had hung back long enough. With a nod to Lauren, he approached Fredericks at the counter as the register was still closing.
Lauren remained in the center of the first room, smiling and nodding when Carlos excused himself with Fredericks into a back room. She kept her hands clasped behind her, casually glimpsing the antique furniture on display that she now felt familiar enough with to almost sell. The mirrored door to the small back room was ajar and Fredericks' voice rose.
"You don't know how I wish to be of more service," he said in clear English. "Were you to come first, it would be yours."
There was a long pause during which Lauren heard paper being folded.
"This is all I can do," Fredericks said.
"Warsaw," Carlos said. "I, too, wish we could do business. Guten tag."
Carlos reemerged from the back room and collected Lauren and ushered her out of the shop. He said little until they had crossed the street now coming back to life after the midday meal. She watched his expression.
His face was tight and firmly creased. "It's gone."
"Already?"
He nodded. "The man came to his house last night. It was packed up early this morning," he said briskly. "The pirate. That's what happens to these landlocked countries; the pirates move inland, but they're still cutthroats. Fredericks didn't spend one single Euro buying it, but he can sell it. He was probably out squandering a few thousand this morning."
She quickened her pace to match his. "Who got it?"
"He didn't say, but given the fact that our bejeweled shadow is absent, I would say the Polish government."
"They would have the means to test and move it in such a short time," she murmured.
"The man asked for no sample."
She shook her head. "They took it to Warsaw?"
"No, that's our next destination." He hailed a taxi and hurried her into it. He gave the driver the name of their hotel before lowering his voice and turning to Lauren. "Fredericks supplied the purchaser with the same information he gave us."
"How thoughtful. So we're in a rat race."
"And we're behind." He said no more, looking out the small window without seeing the heavy traffic.
She sighed slowly. It appeared that their Polish shadow definitely had means and methods.
Back at the hotel they packed and were at the train station before Carlos made a startling decision. He listened to Lauren as she choreographed the train stops form Salzburg into Warsaw and shook his head when she told him there would be no seats available until the next morning at 7:40.
"We'll get a car."
She looked at him with surprise. "Carlos, it's a straight shot to Krakow and we can catch seats in Vienna."
"As we stand here, possibly two other buyers are on their way and I don't care to be stranded on a train with either of them for fifteen hours," he said.
She nodded as she thought this through; she hadn't considered being trapped on a train with their unknown competition. She frowned as he evaluated her sandals.
"I'll make the arrangements for a car," he said, gaze drifting to the small car rental kiosk in the station. "You put on some comfortable shoes."
Reuben settled back for the long drive through the Austrian countryside. It would have been shorter to cross into Germany at Braunau and Simach, but safer farther north. He was certain his contacts were still in place just south of Schärding.
He sighed, stretching his cramped fingers around the two-ton truck's steering wheel. The drive ahead was long and lonely, and only one step in several if he was lucky enough to reach Warsaw before anyone else.
There were names for this "anyone," but he chose not to think of them. It gave the search a personal feel he hadn't anticipated.
Yes, he finally admitted to himself, Herr Doctor and Fraulein Gates were contenders for the amber panels. He hadn't wanted to believe it, but now there was no dancing around the fact. He ignored the convenient coincidence of Lauren's trip into the crypt and stable at first, rather fooling himself that she was only a curious, blundering American.
The idea had worked until he left the chateau. Then, in the raw light of Gustalav's adamant affront, Reuben knew he had painted an unlikely picture of Dr. Sheldon and assistant. It was a small comfort believing Lauren wasn't aware of the extent of his own deception. If she wanted to pretend ignorance of the amber, that was fine, so long as she didn't know he knew of the treasure.
During the long drive he had recounted his conversations with her and discovered just enough ambiguity to leave him unsure. She hadn't met him for breakfast that last morning, which he could only read as loyalty.
No light discourse with the opposition. Conflict of interests. That would have been Carlos' stand on the matter, however innocent.
Suddenly there was a loud pop at the back of the truck and the steering wheel jerked in his hands. The truck dove to the left, pulling hard. Reuben straightened it with great effort, feeling the tons of weight behind the cab shove against his control of the front tires. He pulled over to the side of the road, narrowly missing a stand of trees that broke from the corner of a field.
He stopped and got out of the truck, cursing European engineering in general, and estimated the damage. He crouched closer to the rear tire, coughing as road dust swirled from his hasty braking. His fingers moved over the chewed rubber of the tire, frowning as he examined the blowout.
He stood and turned, dark eyes scanning the hill across the road, senses alerting to the obvious bullet hole in the tire. A man stepped in front of him from seemingly nowhere at the back of the truck.
"Rybak," Reuben said, adding a curse he knew the Polish man would understand. As he reached a hand into his vest, there was another sound behind him.
A blinding pain coursed through the base of Reuben's skull, followed by a second blow, and then blackness swallowed his senses.
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